The present invention relates to a motion picture image editing method capable of searching for the starting point of motion picture images included in videotapes and/or movie film signals separately for individual scenes (hereafter referred to as cuts), and in particular to a picture image change point detecting method for detecting a change point between cuts from motion picture images stored in video tape or a video disk.
As a treatise concerning a method for automatically detecting motion picture image cuts, "Study on motion picture image data base handling" by Sotomura and Abe, Technical Report IE89-6, 89-33, The Institute of Electronics, Information Communication Engineers (IEICE), for example, can be mentioned. This treatise has proposed a method of detecting pictorial image change points visually by defining "motion picture image cut" as a section of picture images in which the picture images largely change and by using brightness. That is to say, histogram of brightness is extracted as a feature quantity for each frame of a subject motion picture image, and then a histogram difference between a frame at the pertinent current time point and its immediately preceding frame is derived. The sum total of resultant difference values is calculated. The sum total of difference values is used as the frame correlation coefficient, and a certain fixed threshold is set. When the correlation coefficient exceeds this threshold value, it is determined that a change point between cuts has appeared. A "cut" means a section of picture images forming one scene lasting from the beginning of a certain operation to the end thereof in motion picture images such as video signals and picture image signals.